Solitary Soulmate
by weestarmeggie
Summary: Voldemort didn't know that if you hadn't met your soulmate, you'd simply be reincarnated as your sixteen your old self upon your death. It takes an innumerable amount of reincarnations for him to work this one fact out, even longer to work out who his soulmate is and it was only thanks to bloody Potter that he did. Soulmate AU
1. Chapter 1

"Hello Tom."

Voldemort flinches at the sound of his "name" coming from Potter's mouth. Potter, who's sitting on a rock, idly twirling his wand in his hands like there's nothing to fear, and to be fair to potter (something he's reluctant to be) the boy has outlived him numerous times at this point, and perhaps he should take a moment and listen to him.

He stands across the clearing, arms folded across his chest and holds his head high and indicates with his free hand that he should go on. Potter's grin has him immediately regretting the decision.

"You're being stubborn. I don't know why you won't accept that she's your soulmate. She's magnificent and scary and she's perfect for you."

Voldemort makes a face that makes Harry laugh and shake his head, almost friendly, like Voldemort hasn't tried _and failed_ multiple times in this life and all his previous ones to kill him. He's heard this speech a few times from Potter now, almost always at this point in their stories. Hogwarts. The boys would be seventh year. The forest.

He is tired. Of failing, of being beat, of having absolute imbeciles for followers who are consistently bested by school children. It is exhausting.

"I know you're scared" he whispers and Voldemort shudders, because yes, he is scared of believing this and doing something about it and -

"I don't want to do this anymore" Harry says, louder this time and Voldemort can't help but agree – he doesn't want to do it anymore either, he wants to win. For once in his life, he wants to win, and if he needs to stop fooling around trying to become master of the universe to do so then he must listen.

He nods his head solemnly and Harry jumps down from the rock and steps towards him, stopping only a few feet away, "no horcruxes, Okay? Find a better way to wait for her."

Voldemort sighs heavily, horcruxes are evil and terrible to make and hurt but they are easy at the same time, though he understands why he shouldn't make them this time around, if he's lucky, his final time around. "I'll try."

"Good" Harry agrees raising his wand, "Ready?"

Voldemort takes a look around before settling his gaze on Harry and raising his own wand. They have done this dance before.

"Avada Kedavra"

"Expelliarmus"

Voldemort hits the floor, and Tom riddle wakes up gasping in his bed, sixteen years old and without a horcrux to his name. His face is grim and for the first time in his life he is determined to do things right.

Even so, fifty years is a long time to wait for his soulmate, his Hermione Granger.

* * *

The first time it happened Voldemort was shocked and bewildered and truly thought that he had lost his mind. He had potter beat. He had that scrawny annoying little shit beat – how could he not with an impossible wand and a horde of death eaters and -

This was not what he anticipated.

So he dismissed it and went about his life and made the same decisions and mistakes and -

He's not sure what to think when he wakes up in his sixteen-year-old body for the second time, but he knows he's angry. That the feeling in his gut twisting and snarling and corrupting him is anger. He makes more mistakes, is more brutal, is more determined and still. **Still he fails.**

Anger becomes his best friend. It helps him make the same mistakes, more even.

He does not know what to do, how to fix it, him, this weird déjà vu he seems to have had thrust upon him.

He is left reeling by the discovery that all he has to do is meet his soulmate. Meet them – him or her and he will be free of living this life. Reeling and bitter about the discovery. At this point in his life he has met a lot of people, anyone worth meeting has been met, how could his soulmate not possibly fall into that category?

He's not sure which reincarnation he's at when Potter mentions it.

"You haven't met them?" He asks, sounding shocked. And for a second, a slither of a second, Voldemort wants to say _"I know right?"_ And gossip about it like a pair of schoolgirls. Reality is harsher, less forgiving.

Another time, Potter wonders who it could be, teases him about it. It takes Voldemort a very long time to question how Potter even knows, and even longer to work out he's accidentally made a horcrux out of the boy.

He's been possessing Potter in every reincarnation as far as he can remember, but the first time he does so simply because he's bored, Potter's in the Gryffindor common room, surrounded by his friends, and celebrating what Voldemort assumes is a quidditch victory. That's when he feels it, a sharp pain in his chest and he turn's Potter's head to find himself sitting beside, hands touching innocently, his soulmate, who's chatting away to Potter like she, presumably normally does.

Voldemort withdraws from his mind jealous. Jealous that Potter has met his soulmate and he hasn't. Angry that the girl, barely an adult and born out of his time is friends with Potter and a Gryffindor. He literally gives zero shits about her being muggleborn, he's only ever pressed the blood purity issue because of Malfoy and Lestrange and Yaxley -

It doesn't matter, he doesn't care _about that._

He cares that he will never have her, not like this, not in this incarnation at any rate.

He still doesn't stop. And after a few more lives and reincarnation's Potter works it out. Potter is fucking livid when he first does. Calmes down eventually though, which is worse, because he starts trying to make Tom accept it, confront it, her.

He's not a scared little boy anymore even if his appearance is that of one. He has a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, he knows how many times they've done this and how he feels about it all and -

He enjoys torturing Voldemort about it.

Until he too agrees that enough is enough.

That is the last time he ever sees Potter in the clearing of the forest at Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm sorry My Lord," Abraxas choked on the forkful of potatoes he'd just eaten, "you want us to what?"

Tom glared across the table at him, though he continued to cut his own dinner up into manageable bites, "you heard."

"But….but-" he spluttered.

"But nothing Malfoy." Tom said and Abraxas flinched at his tone, "blood purity is nonsense. You know this. I _know_ you know this."

Abraxas continued to gape, open-mouthed at him until Thoros elbowed him and he acquiesced, nodded his head solemnly and murmured a quiet "yes Tom."

Tom cast his eyes around him. Everyone else, his knights, had accepted his decision with little to no fuss. It helped of course that Avery himself, was half in love with a muggleborn of his own from Hufflepuff. Lestrange had been sleeping with numerous half-bloods. Nott had discovered his own soulmate in a pure blooded Gryffindor whose parents were staunch opposers to blood purity. There would be no trouble from them.

Not as long as they still got what they wanted from him in the long run.

* * *

It was incredibly difficult to achieve immortality, or well, a way to stay in the state he was now Tom discovered. He didn't want to be an old man when he finally met her.

"You don't honestly think you missed something in these books do you?" Mulciber mumbled one afternoon.

They graduated Hogwarts in three days, and whilst Tom had been over the books with a fine tooth comb numerous times already, he knew it wouldn't hurt to have a few other people do so as well.

"No, Mulciber, I don't."

Nobody spoke again for the remainder of the afternoon, but they still didn't find a way to help.

* * *

Tom had always taken a job at Borgin & Burkes. He was interested in all the dark and dangerous artifacts that he could possibly come into contact with and he'd been proven right on more than one occasion. Still, this time he was a good head boy and actually pursued some of the offer's he'd been made by the various departments in the ministry. He did, after all, have excellent recommendations from both Dippet and Slughorn and well, when had the latter ever let the ministry down in acquiring a bright, new mind?

It was the DOM that interested him most though. He did after all, still have to discover a way to attain immortality without sacrificing a bit of his soul.

* * *

It took him three years to finally qualify as an unspeakable. He had spent his time fostering relationships with as many people as he could and gathering the founder's items he had used in his past lives as horcruxes.

He had killed and maimed and -

He was still not to be trifled with. His soul was still whole.

But he was sane and wealthy, much more wealthy than he could ever remember being before in any other life, and he still had his power.

Of course, his knights all had their own jobs and were busy improving their own selves while he was in the DOM learning any and everything that he could. It amazed him that so much magic was locked away from the general wizarding populace.

He knew that one day, when he was in charge of the ministry (because he had no doubt that it wouldn't be a difficult task to accomplish), he would stop hiding it away and share it with his fellow witches and wizards. What was the point of magic if not to be shared and learned and garnered?

* * *

"So," his supervisor, a man whose only defining feature was the way his left eye twitched every time he spoke, said, "you want to focus on death?"

Tom had practised his answer to this very question numerous times at home alone in his flat above Flourish and Blotts. Sure, he could afford to buy a house of his own, hell, if he wanted he could be living in the abandoned Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton. But he chose to stay in a tiny flat above Diagon Alley's bookstore for the exact same reason he chose to work in the DOM. It gave him the greatest chance at discovering just how he was going to attain immortality. Of course, he wasn't eager for anyone other than those he had deemed worthy of the knowledge to know that, so he'd practised a much more humble response. Except of course, when he met the man's eye he was unable to stop himself from spilling out the truth.

"No. I want to discover everlasting life."

Tom's eyes widened, shocked at his own admission. His supervisor's lips curled into a dangerous smile. Tom recognised it as one that often graced his own lips and knew that he'd been played. "Oh," the man said smugly, "you don't think one philosopher's stone is enough?" Tom snorted. His supervisor continued, "what about horcruxes? A nifty, if not incredibly dangerous a _nd_ illegal option?"

Tom flinched and swallowed his trepidations, "No. I want to work on something else. Something new. Something that will allow me to meet my soulmate as the twenty year old man I am now rather than the seventy year old I will be when she's of age," he said, his hands curling into fists as the words escaped him unwillingly. "What the hell?" He shouted, jumping up from his chair.

"Sit down Mr. Riddle. You did not think I would know?" Silence. "You are not the first young man to enter this department with immortality in mind," Tom opened his mouth to protest but a look from the other man stopped him and he dropped back into his chair, "but," Tom's head snapped up, "you are the first to want it for not entirely selfish reasons. So. Tell me your ideas."

* * *

"Mr. Riddle."

Tom jumped, startled, and looked up to see Albus Dumbledore standing outside of his flat. He schooled his expression. "Prof- Albus," he said coming to a stop a few feet away from him, "What a surprise, can I help you?"

Tom hadn't seen his professor since he'd graduated, he hadn't given the old man much thought if he were honest. He had so many other things to consider and plan and - his transfiguration professor never really factored into them, not when he wasn't becoming a 'Dark Lord' this time around.

"I was in the neighbourhood and well, I thought I might drop in on our illustrious head boy, find out how you've been doing for myself. Horace speaks so fondly of you after all."

Tom's eyebrows furrowed but he simply nodded and stepped past the old man, "of course, " he agreed, "come in for some tea."

Dumbledore didn't answer, he simply followed Tom up the stairs to his flat and settled himself in one of the chairs whilst Tom busied himself in the kitchen with hot water and cups.

"I hear you're doing quite well for yourself. Department of mysteries wasn't it?" Dumbledore asked from his seat. Tom tensed and cast him a glance over his shoulder.

"Yes." Albus nodded.

"Yes it's a mysterious place. Hidden within the bowels of the ministry. Lot's of," he paused, his tongue flicking against his lips, "possibilities."

Tom wasn't sure who moved first, but he had been too slow. Dumbledore had him bound to a chair and silenced before the _reducto_ left his lips. "You know I was once trained as an unspeakable," he continued, ignoring Tom's maleficent glare, "they told me, after I'd dedicated three years of my life to them, that I simply wasn't what they were looking for. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you, Tom Riddle, a boy who tortured his fellow orphans, charmed his way through school, killed Hepzibah Smith, amongst a half a dozen or more witches and wizards, and has, up until this point gotten away with it, had succeeded where I had failed."

Tom tried to squirm in his chair, but the binds only seemed to tighten and he summoned all his magic in an effort to break free. It was enough only to end the silencing spell. "You won't get away with this," he rasped. Dumbledore laughed.

"Oh my dear boy, I already have."

* * *

Tom Riddle bolted upright in his bed. Sixteen years old without a horcrux to his name but, for the first time in his life a death caused by someone other than Harry Potter. He tugged his wand from under his pillow, charmed his drapes shut and encased his bed with the strongest silencing spell he knew before he let rip a scream of utter frustration.

Again.

He had to do it all again.

Though, admittedly with one difference.

Albus Dumbledore would be dead before he graduated this time.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Tom killed himself he was forty-two but didn't look a day over twenty-three.

It hadn't been planned. That is to to say, he hadn't spent weeks agonising over the decision or anything like that. He simply woke up one morning, visited the cafe on the corner around from his flat in muggle London, ordered his regular tea with bacon and egg sandwich, sat down at his usual table in the back and flipped open the paper with the intention of keeping up with the goings on in the world in which he barely spent any inadvertently opened up at the obituaries to find the young faces of a newlywed couple, Helen and Richard Granger, staring, unmoving, up at him.

It took him a few minutes to realise what he was looking at. That it was the obituaries and not the wedding announcements. But no, the word was printed in bold capital letters at the top of the page and-

Dead. At the tender age of twenty-one. They'd barely been married a week before they'd been caught up in a bank robbery and murdered.

He left the cafe before the waiter with the crooked teeth that asked him for the sports section of the paper every time he went in there could put his food down. He didn't watch where he was going, he simply let his feet wander until he came to the edge of the footpath and stopped.

All around him muggles were moving, living, loving and had no idea what the handsome young man in their midst was thinking or feeling. Tom didn't really know either. But he looked up and saw a bright red vehicle, a bus, coming down the road and -

Screams erupted and vehicles screeched to a halt and the body of Tom Riddle smashed against the front of the bus and broke.

But Tom Riddle had already been broken before he'd even spotted the bus.

* * *

"I'm bored," Abraxas muttered. Tom looked up from his diary, from recording the secret of immortality and all future dates that he needed to keep a track of and frowned at him.

"How on earth, could you be bored on a day like today?" Thoros muttered from Tom's other side, not bothering to open his eyes much less look beyond the patch of grass upon which the group of seventh year boys were laying. "Exams are over. We graduated this morning. Our lives begin tomorrow. There is nothing boring about that."

"But we're just sitting here. We could be making mischief or raising hell or-"

"Have you forgotten that I'm still Head Boy?" Tom asked, closing his diary and shutting it away into his satchel. "That technically I can't endorse any sort of misbehaviour."

"Oh come on, Tom," Avery chuckled, "one final night of debauchery won't kill us. What's Dippet going to do? Take the badge off you?"

"No," Thoros answered for him, and Tom raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Dumbledore's dead so there's no-one whispering into his ear about how Slytherins should be punished for every single little thing. But that doesn't mean we have to be careless."

Tom stood and hitched his bag onto his shoulder. He let his gaze follow the shoreline of the Black Lake, let himself enjoy the shrill shrieks of laughter and the happiness of his fellow students before he began to stalk off in the direction of the castle. "Quite right Nott," he said when he felt the other boys, his knights, step into line behind him.

* * *

"Where have you been?"

Tom glared at Abraxas over the rim of his champagne glass and the other man squirmed in his seat. "That is to say - Tom - you've been missing-"

"I haven't been _missin-_ "

"-For four years and none of us, _none of us_ knew how to get in con-"

"-I left perfectly reasonable instructions with Nott about how to contact me if it was an emerge-"

"-well he didn't bloody well share them when I needed yo-"

"Malfoy. You becoming formally engaged to the witch you've been betrothed to since birth is not an emergency."

Abraxas snapped his mouth shut and Tom could see that he was biting on his tongue. Honestly, the man was ridiculous. It's not like he'd meant to disappear for so long but-

He'd worked out in his last reincarnation the secret of immortality. Dumbledore was dead. He had his trophies - Helga's cup, his mother's locket and Rowena's diadem. He didn't need to spend another three years training as an intern in the DOM when he already knew all the secrets it held. He didn't need to stay in England when there was so much magic out there just waiting to be re-discovered and introduced to civilised society again. He'd visited the young Grangers and set every imaginable- and some of his own design- wards upon them so that no harm would, or could, befall them. At least not before they'd had their first born. Not before they'd had Hermione.

There was also the small issue of Grindelwald. Tom hadn't had to deal with the man before - Dumbledore always had. But Dumbledore was dead now and Tom had noticed when he'd been travelling Europe that the longer Grindelwald was allowed to roam free, untethered and without a clear opponent, the more difficult Tom's life was going to be in the long run. The idea that he'd be taking on one of the darkest wizards their world had ever encountered left a funny taste in his mouth. He was not a good guy, and really Grindelwald was nothing but a footnote in his past, but things were different now.

Things were very different and he needed a plan. Which was why he'd returned to England - to his knights.

Malfoy's voice snapped him from his thoughts. "Well," he drawled, in that way that only a Malfoy could, "what's the plan now?"

Tom smirked at him over the rim of his own glass.

* * *

"This," Rosier, who was crouched down behind an empty bin in a deserted alley in Berlin whispered, "is a terrible idea."

Abraxas opened his mouth to protest but Tom glared across the dark alley at the pair of them and they promptly shut up. When their _target_ appeared at the end of the alley, they quickly set off after him. Hidden beneath disillusionment charms, the three Englishmen followed quickly and quietly until the man came to a sudden halt.

"I know you're there," he said in perfect English and three of them stiffened. Abraxas shot Evan a glare as though it was his fault they'd been caught out. "Come out to play," he sneered. Tom's eyes narrowed at the taunt, and he stepped out of the shadows, removing his charm and faced their target head on while Rosier and Malfoy stepped out of the shadows behind him. "Oh! I see you brought some playmates."

Tom fired a bombarda and dove out of the way of an Avada. He blinked when it crashed into the brick behind him, surprised that the German was going straight for the kill. He flicked his eyes in his friends' direction and was pleased to note their determined faces before the three of them began to fire spell after spell towards the end of the alley.

Tom was surprised by how swiftly the man dodged them, ducking and diving as the three of them unleashed their arsenal of spells against him, all except that infamous green one. They wanted to get information, after all, and it was incredibly tiring and tedious to do so with a corpse. Tom had first hand experience.

When the man had eventually tired himself out, Rosier conjured a chair and bound him to it - summoning the wizard's wand in the process whilst Abraxas erected strong privacy charms around the alley so that not a sight or sound could escape their small bubble.

"You could have made this so much easier," he said, "you could have joined us. Now though," he sighed dramatically, stepping forwards, "now you're going to pay dearly for your mistake. You picked the wrong horse i'm afraid."

Tom didn't let him reply. He simply jerked his wand and entered the man's mind.

When he emerged from it a few minutes later, he not only had a wealth of knowledge about Grindelwald and his schemes, but also a reminder of something he hadn't thought about it decades.

Because whilst the man knew a lot of things about how Grindelwald ran things, he'd also reminded him of a much more important fact that he hadn't entertained in a long time.

Grindelwald was still the the wielder of the elder-wand.


End file.
